The distributed farmer
Rethinking US Midwestern precision agriculture techniques
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8079205 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M Comi (0000-0003-0278-856X, University of Kansas, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 403-415 |
| Publication date | 2020-07-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2325-1042 • E-ISSN: 2325-1042 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/23251042.2020.1794426 |
| OpenAlex | W3046159991 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 25 |
| References cited | 49 |
This article examines changes in the social world of farming, agricultural decision-making, and environmental outcomes in regions where precision agriculture (PA) techniques are increasingly commonplace. I suggest that a PA farmer does not typically appear as a discreet actor but rather as a ‘distributed farmer’: an assemblage of human and material participants which only together enact farming and decisions about farming. Drawing on qualitative data collected from on-site interviews with agronomists and seed sellers working in the US Midwest alongside a rich body of agri-food scholarship, this research posits that PA demonstrates the usefulness of this new theoretical unit for critically examining agricultural practices. Using the Midwestern PA case example, I show that studying relational flows interior to the distributed farmer is a generative way to further the discourse about farmer decision-making. Further, the distributed farmer is shown to be a useful theoretical tool when considering the social relationships between contemporary agricultural techniques and human values of environmental innovations. This article has implications for continued social science scholarship and for applied research supporting transitions to more sustainable and equitable agricultural practices in the US Midwest and many cognate geographies elsewhere in the globe
Agriculture · Archaeology · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Globe · Scholarship · Sociology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Land Use and Ecosystem Services · Organic Food and Agriculture · Psychology
Chicken noodle night
Exploring relational farming futures for responsible innovation in precision agriculture through Q-method and speculative design
Transformations, policy, and politics in the agri-food system
Digital technology and on-farm responses to climate shocks
Chasing pigs, chasing profits
Rethinking ‘responsibility’ in precision agriculture innovation
The perilous promise of productivity
Farm media
Restoring sense out of disorder? Farmers’ changing social identities under big data and algorithms
When justifications are mistaken for motivations
Social science – STEM collaborations in agriculture, food and beyond
Democratizing ownership and participation in the 4th Industrial Revolution
Can a robot be an expert? The social meaning of skill and its expression through the prospect of autonomous AgTech
Climate considerations aside
Facilitating international animal welfare standards implementation in national contexts
Advancing Akis with assemblage thinking
Between on-site and the clouds
Deliberative assembling
A relational approach to pesticide use
Other agricultures of scale
Making Citra
Cyborg farmers
Of poultry and the good farmer
Farmers who tinker
A "Win-Win" for Soil Conservation? How Indiana Row-Crop Farmers Perceive the Benefits (and Trade-offs) of No-Till Agriculture
Understanding agri-food systems as assemblages
Re-shaping ‘soft gold’
Looking through a responsible innovation lens at uneven engagements with digital farming
Assemblage Theory
Reassembling the Social
The Politics of Digital Agricultural Technologies
Conceptual innovation in environmental sociology
Resilience thinking, fluidity and the agency of a quasi-actant
Hollow Ecology
Sociology, environment, and modernity
Farmer autonomy and the farming self
Understanding farmer co-operation
Food security and the justification of productivism in New Zealand
Relational rurals
Ordering adoption
Sustainability assemblages
Ecological modernization and the US Farm Bill
Ecological modernization as social theory
Following beekeeping
The Deleuze-Guattarian assemblage
Impeding Dispossession, Enabling Repossession
After Method
Catching up with things? Environmental sociology and the material turn in social theory
Assemblage thinking and actor-network theory
Assemblages and Actor-networks
Big Data in food and agriculture
Publicising Food
Agro-Digital Governance and Life Itself
Ontology Matters
Farming from a Process-Relational Perspective
Unravelling the Global Wool Assemblage
Exploring agency beyond humans
Exploring Knowledge-Cultures
On Recalling Ant
The right hybrid for every acre
The Mutability of Biotechnology Patents
Issues in the Political Economy of Agricultural Biotechnology
Land grab/data grab
Beating the bounds
| Unique citing works | 25 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 25 |